Avlon: 3 things to watch for in S.C.

(CNN) -- All presidential primaries matter, but some matter more than most.

South Carolina has voted for the eventual winner of the Republican nomination since 1980. And for the conservative candidates looking to stop the inevitability narrative that has surrounded Mitt Romney's candidacy, South Carolina is a must-win state. Here are three things to watch as South Carolinians vote.

Newt-momentum again? Newt Gingrich is a political Lazarus in the midst of his third rise from the dead here in South Carolina. After a disappointing fourth place finish in Iowa and New Hampshire, many political observers thought the former speaker of the House was finished. But his strong and substantive debate performances have helped shift the winds in his direction once again.

Earlier this week, polls started showing him closing the gap with Romney, with some even showing Gingrich pulling ahead. South Carolina is a good state for his defiantly anti-PC style and political reform message.

Opponents have once again tried to go negative on his sometimes tumultuous personal life, but it remains to be seen whether those attacks are already baked in the cake. Rick Perry getting out of the race and immediately endorsing Gingrich was a huge boost. If Newt can win South Carolina, we have a real race in front of us.

Romney downplaying expectations: Roaring out of a strong broad-based win in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney seemed unstoppable. Some pundits occupied themselves with sorting through his likely VP picks. But a week is a long time in politics, and in the course of one morning, Mitt found out he had in fact lost Iowa to Rick Santorum and fallen behind in some polls. Simultaneously, questions were raised about his self-admitted (but not completely disclosed) 15% tax rate and Cayman Islands investments.

The much-vaunted endorsement of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley might prove to be more of a national story than a local influence; she is currently less popular in the Palmetto State than Barack Obama.

A Thursday debate performance in which Romney tried to still play the front-runner and stay above the fray didn't help matters. But even as the Romney campaign downplayed expectations of a win -- and blanketed the state with robocalls (I received two essentially back to back, one from the Restore America super PAC and the other from Ann Romney, a total coincidence, I'm sure) -- Romney can't be counted out, even in this state. He still has the best organization of the bunch.

An evangelical bump? Rick Santorum was supposed to get a big bump when evangelical leaders gathered at a Texas ranch and announced their intention to support him.

It was historic and in a state stereotyped as an evangelical bastion, home to Bob Jones University, it was supposed to be a game changer. But so far, no game has changed: Rick Santorum remains stuck in a distant fourth place, according to the polls. There is still time for votes to shift in his direction, but this failure to materialize is a significant question mark hanging over South Carolina as its citizens prepare to vote.

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Sites back online after Anonymous attack

(CNN) -- U.S. authorities overreacted in shutting down the online file-sharing site Megaupload and seeking criminal charges against its executives, the company's American lawyer said Friday.

"We believe that the allegations are without merit and Megaupload is going to vigorously defend against the case," attorney Ira Rothken said.

Federal authorities shut the site down Thursday, the same day they announced indictments against seven people connected to the site, accusing them of operating an "international organized criminal enterprise responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of copyrighted works." Four of those charged were arrested Friday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. authorities.

The site, which traffic-tracking service Alexa ranked as the world's 72nd most visited website before it was taken down, allowed users to share and download files, many of which were copyrighted works made available for download without permission, according to authorities.

Rothken said the case demonstrates a "copyright extremist mentality" on the part of U.S. authorities and raises significant due process and consumer protection issues.

He said it was inappropriate for U.S. authorities to seize the company's servers and domain names, not to mention $50 million in assets, without a court hearing.

He also said the seizure means consumers who had stored legitimately acquired materials on sites owned by Megaupload can no longer access them.

The seizure "has essentially created a chilling effect on consumers using Internet cloud storage going forward," Rothken said.

Federal prosecutors allege Megaupload's founders "conducted their illegal operation using a business model expressly designed to promote uploading of the most popular copyrighted works."

The site's popular MegaVideo subsidiary was widely known in tech circles for its copious selection of pirated content, including recent movies and episodes of hit TV shows.

"The conspirators allegedly paid users whom they specifically knew uploaded infringing content and publicized their links to users throughout the world," prosecutors said in a statement. They also took steps to mask the presence of illegal content on the site, prosecutors said.

The company also discouraged users from using the site for legitimate personal storage by automatically deleting files that weren't regularly downloaded, prosecutors said.

Authorities said the operation had generated more than $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue and the sale of premium memberships.

Those indicted are citizens of New Zealand, Germany, Slovakia and the Netherlands. No U.S. citizens were named. However, Megaupload has servers in Ashburn, Virginia, and Washington, which prompted the Virginia-based investigation.

The investigation involved 20 search warrants in eight countries, authorities said. Officials seized 18 domain names from the company and its servers based in the United States, the Netherlands and Canada.

Megaupload's sudden shutdown Thursday got the attention of hackers, who quickly assembled a widespread operation to take down the Justice Department and FBI websites, as well as those for the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America and several other sites.

The Internet activism and hacking collective Anonymous took credit for the denial-of-service attacks, which don't damage computer systems but keep sites from operating properly by overloading them with spurious requests. That can slow a site down or keep its servers from responding to legitimate requests.

"It's a violation of freedom of speech," one Anonymous member told CNN of the Megaupload shutdown. "It's part of a bigger picture that's taking place ... which is a very big slide toward Internet censorship on a gigantic scale."

Most of the sites were back up by Friday morning, but the website for New Zealand police, which Anonymous also targeted, appeared to be down early Saturday.

The Justice Department and FBI sites targeted Thursday were operating normally on Friday, a law enforcement official told CNN. Investigators are "looking at forensics to see where (the attack) came from," the official said.

No data breaches occurred on U.S. government sites, the law enforcement official told CNN.

The four Megaupload officials arrested in New Zealand -- Kim Dotcom, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk -- appeared Friday at an initial court hearing.

Dotcom, the Megaupload founder and owner, spoke briefly, interrupting an attorney who sought to stop reporters from photographing the men, according to the New Zealand Herald newspaper.

"We don't mind ... if people want to take photographs of us or cover this event because we've got nothing to hide," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

It was unclear when extradition proceedings would begin.

The four were arrested after a complicated raid that involved 76 police officers who arrived at a New Zealand mansion by helicopter and had to repeatedly defeat electronic locks in pursuing Dotcom, New Zealand's TV One reported, citing Detective Inspector Grant Wormald.

Officers had to cut their way into a safe room, where they found Dotcom near a sawed-off shotgun, the broadcaster reported.

"It was definitely not as simple as knocking at the front door," TV One quoted Wormald as saying.

The raid, seizure and shutdown comes in the same week as a widespread Internet protest over controversial anti-piracy bills in the U.S. House and Senate that would make it easier for U.S. authorities to target foreign piracy sites, of which prosecutors allege Megaupload was one.

The bills are known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the Protect Internet Property Act, or PIPA.

The bills are aimed at cracking down on copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host or facilitate the trading of pirated content. But the legislation has created a divide between tech giants, who say the language is too broad, and large media companies, who say they are losing millions each year to rampant online piracy.

Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, is among the industry supporters of the legislation.

On Friday, after numerous legislators pulled their support for the legislation in the wake of the protests, House and Senate leaders announced they would delay action on the legislation to address concerns raised by activists.

Rothken said the shutdown calls into question whether legislation like SOPA or PIPA is truly needed.

"This demonstrates the government is certainly able to act without any additional legislation," he said.

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Sex is safe for most heart patients

(Health.com) -- If you've recently had a heart attack or heart surgery, you might be concerned that revving up your pulse during a moment of passion could be dangerous. Rest assured: Resuming sexual activity is perfectly safe for most heart patients, according to new guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA).

Certain patients, such as those with severe heart disease who have symptoms while at rest, should put off sex until their condition has stabilized. But if you can walk briskly or climb two flights of stairs without experiencing chest pain, abnormal heart rhythms, or shortness of breath, you're almost certainly ready to start having sex again, the guidelines say.

The authors stress, however, that all heart patients should check with their doctor before resuming their sex life. Just as important, the guidelines encourage patients -- and their partners -- to discuss any feelings of sex-related anxiety or depression with a health professional.

"Both patients and the patient's spouse or partner often have anxieties about resuming sexual activity after the patient has been diagnosed with heart disease or has undergone a heart procedure," says Glenn N. Levine, M.D., the lead author of the guidelines and a professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston. "Sometimes it is actually the partner who is more anxious than the patient."

Health.com: The worst habits for your heart

The guidelines, which appear in the journal Circulation and have been endorsed by a host of physicians' groups, are the first ever from the AHA to focus on heart disease and sex -- a subject that gets far too little attention, the authors say. Most cardiologists fail to raise the topic with their patients, and they are even less likely to ask about anxiety or depression, Levine says.

Stephen Kopecky, M.D., a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, says many patients who have a heart attack or undergo bypass surgery become depressed, which can reduce libido and affect sexual function. To make matters worse, he says, avoiding sex can in turn worsen depression.

"That's why it's so important for us to talk to patients about this, and tell them this is not the end of [their] sex life," says Kopecky, who has studied sexual activity in heart patients but did not participate in writing the new guidelines.

Health.com: Surprising libido boosters

Heart problems during sex are very rare. Less than 1% of all heart attacks are triggered by sexual activity, Levine and his coauthors note, and the odds are even lower for people who exercise regularly. A sedentary person's risk of having a heart attack roughly triples during sex, while an active person's risk rises by just 20%.

But in either case the absolute risk is extremely small, especially since intercourse typically lasts for minutes, rather than hours. The chances that a heart-attack survivor will experience another heart attack or die in any given hour is roughly 1 in 100,000, for instance; during sex those odds increase to no more than about 1 in 33,000.

Still, the guidelines recommend that heart-attack survivors wait at least a week after their attack to resume having sex. Patients who have had bypass surgery or other major heart surgery should wait at least six to eight weeks, the authors say, although sex is generally safe several days after minimally invasive surgery to clear blocked blood vessels.

Health.com: Heart-implant shocks can make sex frightening

The new guidelines address all forms of heart disease, including coronary artery disease, heart failure, heart-rhythm disorders (arrhythmias), and valve problems.

If a heart patient's condition is at all uncertain after an initial consultation with a doctor, the guidelines recommend that he or she undergo an exercise stress test, which involves monitoring heart activity and breathing while walking (or running) on a treadmill.

Even after being cleared for sex, patients may want to take some basic precautions. According to the guidelines, doctors should advise their patients to avoid heavy meals and alcohol before sex, use a position that allows for free breathing, and avoid "unfamiliar surroundings and partners." (Most documented cases of sudden death during intercourse involve extramarital sex, the guidelines note.)

Health.com: 10 reasons why you're not having sex

In addition, patients may need to temporarily lower their expectations. "The achievement of orgasm may require a greater degree of exertion and may not be a realistic initial goal in some patients," Levine and his colleagues write.

Heart patients' concerns about intimacy are "one of those things that gets swept under the rug too often, by not only the caregivers but also the patient and the spouse or the family," Kopecky says. "I think having guidelines like this is very helpful -- to have it out there and talk about [sex] and say it is OK to do."

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Cruise ship's cook says captain ordered dinner after crash

(CNN) -- The captain of the Costa Concordia ordered dinner for himself and a woman after the ship struck rocks off Italy's coast, a cook from the ship told a Filipino television station.

In an interview with GMA Network, cook Rogelio Barista said Capt. Francesco Schettino ordered dinner less than an hour after the accident.

"We wondered what was going on. ... At that time, we really felt something was wrong. ... The stuff in the kitchen was falling off shelves and we realized how grave the situation was," Barista told GMA.

Schettino ordered dinner around 10:30 p.m. Friday, Barista said. Authorities say the ship struck the rocks at 9:41 p.m.

"I have had 12 years of experience as a cook on a cruise ship. ... I have even witnessed fires, so I wasn't that scared," Barista said. "But I did wonder, though, what the captain was doing ... why was he still there."

The ship hit rocks off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night.

At least 11 people are known to have died in the disaster, and 21 are still missing, according to the Italian Crisis Unit.

Criticism from both Costa Cruises and the authorities has focused so far on Schettino, who is under house arrest and facing possible charges of manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship.

Coast guard records published Thursday by an Italian newspaper pile further pressure on the captain of the Concordia and his officers, suggesting that the authorities first became aware of the crash from a friend of the mother of a passenger about 15 minutes after the ship hit rocks.

Schettino's brother-in-law defended him in an Italian newspaper Thursday.

Schettino "managed to avoid a tragedy -- it could have been worse," Maurilio Russo said in Corriere della Sera.

And he denied that the captain had abandoned ship.

"He was not running away, he came down (from the ship) to survey the damage," Russo said.

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Mom claims in viral blog that disabled child denied transplant

(CNN) -- Can a patient be rejected for a kidney transplant based on a developmental disability? A New Jersey mother alleges in her blog that this happened to her 3-year-old daughter, and it has sparked an Internet uproar.

Whether a person with a mental disability qualifies for an organ transplant is a decision made on a case-by-case basis, based on that patient's health, experts say.

On Thursday, Chrissy Rivera wrote in the blog wolfhirschhorn.org about her latest doctor's visit concerning her daughter, Amelia. Rivera writes in the blog that Amelia was ruled out from receiving a kidney transplant because of her developmental disability.

The blog post went viral and inspired an online petition on Change.org that had collected more than 26,000 signatures by 1 p.m ET Wednesday.

It's not possible to confirm Rivera's story with the hospital because of privacy protection laws. CNN contacted Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, but the hospital said it had no comment other than a statement posted on Facebook.

Amelia, nicknamed Mia, has the genetic disorder Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, which delays growth, development and intellectual abilities. People with this syndrome have unusual physical features such as dry skin, curvature of the spine, dental problems, cleft palate or cleft lip, and weak muscle tone that can cause short stature, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Depending on the type of Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, the median life expectancy is no higher than 34 years, according to a 2001 study published in the Journal of Medical Genetics.

Amelia has been a patient at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia almost all her life, said her father, Joe Rivera. But her kidneys are failing, according to the Riveras. Her nephrologist estimated she has six months to one year before needing a transplant, the girl's parents said.

In the blog entry, Chrissy Rivera detailed a doctor's visit on January 10. She wrote that a doctor on the transplant team and a social worker said that Amelia could not be a candidate for kidney transplant "because of her mental delays."

The doctor warned that the medications Amelia has to take after a transplant are very dangerous and could cause seizures and brain damage, the blog post said. According to Rivera, she was told that it was a different case for Amelia compared with other children, because "she is already brain damaged and mentally retarded."

Amelia's dad was also in the room during the conversation.

"I don't know how I didn't jump across the table," he told CNN in a telephone interview. "I was more in shock. I felt like I was frozen."

Rivera said they did not ask that Amelia be placed on the transplant waiting list, which has 90,150 candidates seeking kidney transplants. The Riveras wanted to see whether they or other volunteers could be a donor match for her.

Children even as young as Amelia can receive adult organs -- these body parts can be sliced in a way to fit inside a child's body.

Amelia's parents had not been tested to see whether they matched yet.

"We were going into the meeting thinking we're going to be informed on the process," Rivera said. "Instead he (the doctor) gives us a paper that said she's mentally retarded so she doesn't qualify."

His wife ended her blog post urging readers to share Amelia's story. "We are in the year 2012 and my child still does not have the right to live, the right to a transplant, because she is developmentally delayed," Rivera wrote.

Without knowing the child's medical information, it's impossible to know whether there were other factors that shaped the doctor's recommendation regarding Amelia's transplant.

On its Facebook page, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia stated that, "We do not disqualify potential transplant candidates on the basis of intellectual abilities. We have transplanted many children with a wide range of disabilities, including physical and mental disabilities."

In response to the barrage of comments on its Facebook page, the hospital wrote: "We're listening. We hear your concerns and take seriously your posts, emails and phone calls."

During a discussion on CNN Tuesday, former prosecutor Seema Iyer said, "I would love to hear from the hospital, because these hospitals are constantly in fear of being sued," and said that there could be other issues in this case.

Rivera said someone from the hospital called Sunday about scheduling another appointment.

"We never said anything about CHOP," he said. "Some of the people ranting about Facebook, we haven't said one bad thing. We love CHOP. We want things to be fixed."

There are no national guidelines over transplants involving mentally disabled patients. The United Network for Organ Sharing, the private, nonprofit organization that manages the nation's organ transplant system, does not have rules about what to do in cases of patients with mental disabilities.

Doctors can refuse to consider a patient for an organ transplant if there is another illness or complications such as a severe infection or cancer that is likely to limit the life span.

Mental disabilities should not factor into the decision making for transplants, so long as the patient has strong support from family and caregivers who would ensure that the required medications and care is given, said Dr. Raul de Velasco, the clinical ethics program director at the University of Miami.

"The mental disability should not be the reason why you should not receive a kidney," said de Velasco. The decision should come down to "a medical problem, not the value of the life of a mentally disabled person."

The issue of developmental delay is a difficult one for transplant doctors.

"It's such an unpredictable area; there's not a lot of info known," said Dr. George Mazariegos, the chief of pediatric transplantation at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, about various developmental disabilities. "Therefore these decisions are usually individualized, based on the patient's conditions, their absolute need for transplant and other aspects of the patient's condition."

All transplant recipients have to take immune-suppressing medication to make sure there is no rejection of the new organ.

"Because many individuals with disabilities have a guardian or health care provider making sure they're getting to their appointments, the compliance is not an issue," said Marilee Martens, program director of Nisonger Center at The Ohio State University.

Martens wrote a 2006 report examining the outcome of patients with developmental delays who received kidney transplants. The report published in Pediatric Transplantation concluded that the one-year patient survival rate was 100% and the three-year outcome was 90%.

In Amelia's case, it's difficult to draw any conclusions because, "all we know is what the mom reported hearing. We don't know what the physician stated," she said.

On the flip side, patients who have mental disabilities or neurological delays can qualify to be live organ donors after undergoing screening processes and consent from the family.

Joe Rivera said over the past few days, they've heard from other parents of children with developmental disabilities, who say they were excluded from transplants.

All kids deserve a chance, he said.

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From sex toys to scales at CES

(CNN) -- Connectivity was the name of the game at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, held last week in Las Vegas -- especially when it came to health-related products. From cloud-connected scales to music-connected sex toys, these gadgets rose above the rest as those that might really help you keep your New Year's resolutions.

Sleep soundly

A small, lightweight band users wear on their heads during sleep, the Zeo Sleep System measures brain waves while you're in dreamland, and will sync via Bluetooth with your smart device.

Zeo's free app plots out how many hours of quality snooze time you're getting each night. Great feedback for our highly caffeinated, tech-obsessed society, it also plots out sleep quality based on behaviors you input.

How much did those three glasses of vino affect your sleep? How about that late night fast-food run, or actual run?

Zeo gives you concrete tips for improving your sleep routine based on your habits, and will even wake you up at the optimum time in your sleep cycle. The Zeo is available for a one-time purchase price of $99. (No monthly subscription required.)

Body bands

A bevy of body bands made a splash at CES this year, among them the BodyMedia Fit and the Basis Band.

BodyMedia's Fit monitoring system consists of a small electric band the user wears on his or her arm, that works in conjunction with a software interface that's available on your smartphone or online. Users input their daily calorie intake, and the device monitors calories burned.

The band uses sweat sensors, an accelerometer and skin temperature monitors to figure out how much exercise you're doing, and for how long. It compares that to your food intake to give a picture of your daily health. The accelerometer knows when you're lying on your back for hours at a time (presumably sleeping), and adds that to your fitness picture as well.

The Fit CORE is available for $149, but requires plugging in to synch your data. The new Fit LINK is Bluetooth-enabled for wireless synching, and is available for $179. Both products require a $6.95 monthly subscription to BodyMedia's online dashboard.

Similar to the BodyMedia's Fit, the Basis Band adds real-time heart rate monitoring to the mix by using a optical engine that "looks through the skin to see actual blood flow," similar to the technology used in pulse oximeters (those little things they put on your finger at the doctor's office.)

The Basis Band is also worn on the wrist rather than on the arm, and looks more like a trendy watch than a fitness monitor. The Basis is available for pre-order, shipping sometime this quarter; and will be $199. The price includes lifetime access to the cloud service and online interface -- no monthly subscription required.

Smart medical devices

Smart medical devices abounded on the expo floor this year.

The Withings Wi-fi Body Scale, a sleek device that looks like an iPhone you can step on, connects with your iPhone, or other iOS or Android-capable phone.

The scale measures your weight, lean and fat mass and calculates your BMI almost instantaneously. To keep things simple (and less depressing), the display only shows your weight -- the rest of the information floats up to the cloud, and is available on your smartphone. The free app interface also lets you invite friends, family members or your doctor to view your progress; and it will keep track of data for up to eight users.

The Withings Wi-fi Scale is available for $159, which includes lifetime access to the web and phone service. Unfortunately, just because this scale is cloud-connected, doesn't mean you're going to be any lighter.

Withings also had another smart medical device: the iPhone Blood Pressure Cuff. Wrap it around your arm and then plug this bad boy into your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. A small compressor in the device inflates the cuff, using power from your device.

Once the reading is complete, the information is logged in a free app, and is available to send to your doctor for analysis and tracking. The cuff is available for $129 with no recurring monthly fees.

California-based iHealth Labs also brought a Wi-Fi scale and blood pressure cuff to the table; but a third product really caught our attention: the Smart GlucoMeter. As more of the connected generation starts dealing with diabetes, this high-tech tool may encourage diabetics to check their blood sugar more often.

The device is simple: Plug a pack-of-gum-sized accessory into the bottom of your Apple device, insert a test strip, prick your finger (unfortunately, they haven't been able to eliminate that step). Put a drop of blood on the strip. Within a few seconds, the device measures your blood sugar, and catalogs it for you and your doctor to track. The GlucoMeter is pending approval with the FDA, and should be available in the latter half of 2012. The price has not yet been set.

Health apps

Just as cool as some of the hardware at CES was the software. "Gamification" of health was a popular phrase on the show floor, and several companies weighed in with entries to that category. Among the coolest were ...

UnitedHealth Group's OptumizeMe is a social fitness app that lets you challenge friends and family to get healthy. The app allows users to make their own health challenges or select from a list of popular challenges. Among them: competitions to see who can walk the most steps in a day, who can be the first to run 100 miles, and who can eat their daily servings of fruits and veggies.

The app allows you to add a prize for the top dog and share your results on social networking sites with friends. OptumizeMe is a free app, and it allows you to sync fitness information with your employer's benefits plan if your company has United Healthcare coverage. (TimeWarner, CNN's parent company, is a member of United Healthcare insurance coverage.)

This app isn't a new entry into the category, but a much improved one. Lose It! is a weight-loss management tool that allows users to keep track of food and exercise on the go. The app has a catalog of thousands of the most popular foods, and all of the nutrition information for each of them.

Popular new additions to the app include bar-code scanning of your favorite prepackaged food items, the ability to create and share custom foods and recipes with your friends, and a FourSquare-like badge-earning system, that rewards users' daily entries, weight loss milestones, and sharing activities.

Lose It! is a free app, and will integrate data from many of the connected medical devices listed above into your health picture.

The cool stuff

There are a few other notable additions to the list, though they only sort of qualify as health devices.

The 4Moms Origami Stroller is so cool, it might make you want a baby! This "iPhone of baby strollers" both collapses and rebuilds itself at the touch of a button, using on-board motors that are charged when the user pushes the stroller. It also features daytime-running lights, a cupholder, and a smartphone-charging pouch (using the same charge-as-you-push technology).

An onboard LCD screen monitors the weather, battery level and whether or not your child is in the seat -- critical info if you're considering pushing the "fold" button. But rest assured, the device isn't as scatter-brained as new moms tend to be, and won't fold if your bambino is inside. The origami is available for $849.

The Nest Thermostat gives some much needed love to the oft-neglected category of home heating and cooling interfaces. This $249 piece of wall art automatically learns your temperature preferences, and your comings and goings to make sure your house is cool when you want it to be.

Users can also control the Wi-Fi connected device remotely via smartphone; and special plastic technology enables it to pick up the color of the wall it's on to blend in with your decor.

And for those of you whose New Year's resolutions included having more, uh, fun in the bedroom, the OhMiBod musical vibrators use an audio-enabled microchips to vibrate to the beat of your favorite music. The line features personal-use and partner-friendly devices; even a wearable model to take with you to the clubs. This product was a little difficult to test on the show floor, though.

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Fitness classes streaming online

(CNN) -- It's miserable outside. The whole world is a depressing gray color that just makes you want to lie on the couch and watch reruns of "Sex and the City."

You don't have time to pack your gym bag, drop off the kids, drive to the fitness studio, shower and change, pick up the kids and get back home before dinner.

Plus, you're really tired of floor mats that reek and that woman in the back row who always steps left instead of right, effectively knocking you down on your out-of-shape gluteus maximus.

Whatever your reason is for not wanting to hit the gym, Kristin Knee of Flirty Girl Fitness understands.

"I don't even want to go to my own studio when it's raining," she said with a laugh.

That's why late last year, she and her sister, Kerry, launched Flirty Girl Fitness LIVE, a Web service that streams three or four of their franchise's group classes every day.

Subscribers can log in at home and participate in classes like "Bikini Bootcamp" or "Hottie Body Boxing" from their living room. The classes stay online for 24 hours and then are replaced with the next day's workouts. Unlimited subscription passes are $15 a month.

Online video streaming is just starting to blossom in the fitness industry, IDEA Health and Fitness Association editor Sandy Todd Webster says. Several sites offer similar programs, including Yogis Anonymous, Connect Online Fitness, EMG Live Fitness and DailyBurn.

"It seems like the next natural progression to home fitness DVDs," Webster said. "It's another way of making fitness more convenient for yourself."

Knee was shocked by how quickly the LIVE service caught on with her regular members. People were doing classes on their lunch break at work or logging in while on vacation.

"You know you have a [workout] DVD, and it's an awesome DVD, but the girl tells the same joke every day," Knee said. "This is always live, always fresh, and you feel like you're there."

Variety is one of the reasons Joyce Wells loves group fitness classes. But when Wells moved to the suburbs from New York, she was disappointed with the caliber of local studios.

The businesswoman remembered how much her colleagues at Microsoft had loved video conferencing during meetings. Her subsequent research on online paid content revealed astonishing numbers: In 2010, the National Football League raked in $500 million in revenue from its streaming services; Major League Baseball earned $450 million. Netflix's digital revenue totaled more than $1.5 billion.

So Wells launched EMG Live Fitness, an Internet-based fitness studio that streams classes from instructors across the country. There's no subscription for Wells' site; classes are bought for $5 apiece.

In Wells' opinion, the fitness industry is dragging its feet in making the transition online. The brick-and-mortar gyms are afraid of catalyzing their current market, she says.

"It's going to be like Netflix was to Blockbuster. Blockbuster refused to let go of that model, and look at what happened to them." (Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in September 2010).

Wells' target market is stay-at-home mothers and people who are obese. But online classes appeal to anyone who's uncomfortable in a gym setting, Webster says.

"You hear, 'I can't go to the gym until I get in shape,' " Webster said. "This gives them privacy ... to experience it on their own without feeling self-conscious. This could go a long way to promoting compliance because it's convenient and portable."

Webster says personal trainers also use online video libraries to encourage clients to keep up with their workouts.

While on-demand fitness video libraries are nothing new, they're becoming more elaborate. Fitness company Daily Burn recently introduced HD-quality, customized video workouts on DailyBurn.com. The workouts are led by the "DB6," a team of six instructors who have a variety of areas of expertise.

DailyBurn asks new users questions about their ability levels and goals. It then uses the site's "IntelliBurn" technology to analyze and stream a personalized workout.

By adding the video service, CEO Andy Smith and his producers have turned the site into one giant personal trainer.

"It doesn't put you in a certain bucket," Smith said. "It learns about you as you go, constantly monitoring what workout you did yesterday, are you hitting a plateau. ... People really want to stay motivated and be told what to do."

Nearly 20% of all TVs worldwide will be connected to the Internet by 2016, according to Digital TV Research, which will make it even easier for online fitness videos to infiltrate America's living rooms.

Put bluntly, there are no more excuses.

"People are realizing more and more that there's not a magic pill for [weight loss]," Smith said. "You just need to get started."

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